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This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

we met on a bridge outside town
one-time nearly neighbors
his story ended 200 feet below

we were introduced by a sheriff's deputy
who stood between us
making sure no secrets could pass
between two men in the dark

beneath us both
this bridge of steel of iron
was riveted by men who now
all lay under the dirt
or in cemetery urns
this bridge holds 80 years of stories secret

each rivet and bolt
tells a separate story:
a birth in a foundry
a journey to this place
a final, spasmodic twist into steel
they are buried under fingerprints
of dead men
still hear the echoing voices
from the last time they were touched
their function is not move
if they surrender their purpose
give up on existence
yield their life to hold this bridge
this roadway will crumble into the canyon
but we don't learn from them
how to hold on

for us, this man
and me beside him
we have no bridge to weld ourselves into
the will to move will robs us of reasons to hold fast
we forget we have whole cities who will mourn our absence

I contemplate this for us
because he longer can:
he is silence and weight
waiting for men to carry him
in a zippered bag

a few hours ago
he stood a few feet from here
leaned forward
and let the laws of gravity
judge his weight too heavy to fly

did the rivets in this bridge hear him cry out
did he ever utter a sound
as he jumped from the edge
fell past the steel bolts and iron bars
diving like the birds
did they cry out,
wait! stop!
we have seen how this ends!

the rivets tried to unbolt themselves
creak and bend the iron to reach out and catch him
but decades ago men's tools drove them deep into steel
and they cannot move
they cannot let go
or this bridge will fall
and they will have no purpose
5 feet, 10 feet, 20 feet, 40 feet, 80 feet, 160 feet

some watched him strike the rocks below
but most tried to avert their gaze
twist toward the sky and hope at the last moment
the earth would fall away
and catch him soft

but hours later, they watched in the same silence
as more men carried him a basket to where he last stood
where I had arrived to meet him

to me the journalist
to these men, rescuers turned pallbearers
he is a late-night call
a recovery, a press release, an obituary

but the rivets
the steel beneath us
can't forget him
they have nowhere to go
no new places or stories to replace these nights
he is with them
deeper than fingerprints
and with every passing car
this bridge shudders
wondering
who may be next

CFG the slam poet

Fox the Poet

Christopher Fox Grahamis a Montana-born boy raised in Arizona to be a poet, artist, and singer with unending wanderlust. He's fascinated with art and other shiny things, a good story will keep him captivated and silent as he soaks you in.

In truth, he is good at only three things: using language, kissing, and driving.

He has performed for MTV and on The Travel Channel's "Your Travel Guide" episode of Sedona. Aside from winning more than 100 poetry slams, he's published four books of poetry, most recently The Opposite of Camouflage, and won the 2012 Dylan Thomas Award for Excellence in the Written and Spoken Word.

A slam poet since 2001, he currently hosts the bimonthly Sedona Poetry Slam in West Sedona.

For nearly four years, he was the senior Copy Editor of the Sedona Red Rock News, and an arts reporter and a columnist. He wrote a weekly column "Sedona Underground," about the city's art scene. After leaving in May 2008, he was asked to return as Assistant Managing Editor in October 2009. He was promoted to News Editor in April 2012 and in August 2012 was promoted to Managing Editor, overseeing the Sedona Red Rock News,The Camp Verde Journal, Cottonwood Journal Extra, The Scene and The Village View.

He has won numerous personal and editorial newsroom awards from the Arizona Newspapers Association, including three awards for Best Headline.

He was the managing editor of Kudos, a weekly arts and entertainment publication of the Verde Independent. He was also managing editor of The Villager, a weekly news publication in the Village of Oak Creek.

He is one the six coordinators of GumptionFest a kickass, annual, one-day grassroots arts festival held in Sedona, this year in September. More than 100 artists and bands exhibit their work for free to more than 1,200 people.

In 2005, he founded the Sedona Poetry Open Mic, which he hosted biweekly at Java Love Cafe on second and fourth Tuesdays until 2012. A former venue included Random Acts of Coffee, in Sedona, which closed in June 2005. The venue named a drink after him which one can order an various coffeehouses in Sedona. The "Topher": A large soy chai with two (or three) shots of espresso. Serve iced or hot. He was member of the city of Sedona Child and Youth Commission for two years and chairman for another two years before the commission was dissolved in 2008.

He has been unofficially named "The Voice of the Underground," in Sedona for his column "Sedona Underground" that appeared every Friday in The Scene. for more than three years, featuring more than 150 artists.

He won the 2004 NORAZ Poets Grand Slam, the 2005 Arizona All-Star Poetry Slam, and was a member of the 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2013 Flagstaff National Poetry Slam Teams. He was also a National Poetry Slam bout manager in 2003, venue manager in 2011, and Sedona Slammaster in 2012, 2013 and 2014, sponsoring the city's first three Sedona National Poetry Slam Teams.

He believes that all slam poets are Jedis.

He has been thrown out of six movie theaters, 18 bars, a Las Vegas nightclub with his girlfriend, a public pool, two malls, four golf courses, one bowling alley, five dorms, one airport, one pet store, a now-defunct nonprofit poetry organization ... and Canada. Seriously.